The handling and storage of expensive silicon wafers during the course of fabrication of semiconductor devices is problematic due to the fragility of the wafer material and to storage space limitations. Because semiconductor wafer production involves many distinct steps, including slicing, edge grinding, lapping and cleaning, there is a need for a device to store and protect the wafers between such steps. Currently, this need is filled by wafer storage cassettes. However, such cassettes are highly inefficient in that they must be loaded and unloaded by handling each individual wafer and spatially reorienting the wafers both upon loading and unloading, often causing contamination and breakage; they are cumbersome to handle; and they occupy an unreasonably large amount of floor or shelf space. These shortcomings are overcome by the present invention, which is summarized and described in detail below.